Football: Clear Fork knocks Ottawa-Glandorf out of playoffs

OTTAWA — Ottawa-Glandorf’s football team knew what to expect with Clear Fork on Friday night.

The Details

The Titans just struggled with what to do about it in Friday night’s 35-9 loss in the Division IV, Region 14 semifinals.

The Colts (10-2) already had a 147-yard offensive advantage and a 14-0 lead before O-G had its first first down with about 3 minutes to play in the first quarter, thanks to a 33-yard touchdown run by Trey Sellers and a 33-yard TD reception by Nash Evans from Marcus Hoeflich.

“We got what we thought we were going to get tonight,” said Ottawa-Glandorf coach Ben Kaufman,”and that’s a very disciplined, physical team. They don’t make mistakes. They execute their assignments. That’s what we got.”

The Titans ended a truly remarkable season, going 10-0 in the regular season just one year after going 0-10 in 2025. They finished the year 11-1.

Clear Fork plays Shelby (12-0) next Friday at a neutral site, which should be announced by Sunday. The Whippets beat the Colts 28-21 back on Oct. 2.

Sellers finished with 15 carries for 125 yards and two touchdowns. Alex Schlosser had 19 carries for 94 yards and a TD.

Evans had six catches for 105 yards and a pair of scores. Hoeflich completed 6 of 9 passes for 105 yards with two scoring passes for the Colts, who traditionally are run-heavy and had 50 carries for 286 yards tallied by six different players.

“Our offensive line, we’ve got a lot of young guys, but they’re big and sometimes they can be really nasty, and we like that,” Clear Fork coach Aaron Brokaw said. “Our backs like running behind that. I think people get fooled by looking at the stat sheet a lot of times that we can’t pass the ball. Marcus is a tremendous quarterback; we just prefer to run the ball a little bit more than being wide open and throwing the ball.”

It helped that the Colts went 7 of 11 on third-down, finding the yards they needed to keep drives alive.

As for the Titans, they didn’t have much choice after falling behind early. Running back Oscar Salsburey only had six carries for 13 yards, as O-G asked quarterback Tanner Vogt to air it out. He completed 12 of 28 passes for 178 yards with an interception. He also ran 13 times for 61 yards despite taking five first-half sacks.

On the second play of the second half, Deegan Miller caught a 25-yard pass from Vogt and just outran the defenders on a 69-yard scoring play to pull within 12 points at 21-9. Miller finished with three catches for 93 yards.

“We had to start taking some shots,” Kaufman said. “We knew we were going to get man coverage from their secondary, and they’ve got several really good athletes in the secondary. They took away our weapons.”

It proved to be the only touchdown, though, as the Titans had to settle for a second-quarter field goal and threw an interception on second-and-goal in the fourth quarter. It came down to a halftime message to not let up, Brokaw said.

“They were an 11-0 team. They’re that way for a reason,” he said. “They’ve been in some close games. We’re not done. We’ve got to keep our foot on the gas pedal.”

While the Titans were disappointed with Friday night’s outcome, Kaufman told his players afterward how proud they should be for the season they had.

“I’m proud of them,” Kaufman said. “I think they taught themselves a lot about life. Like I told them after the game, that’s the most important thing.”

• CLEAR FORK 35, OTTAWA-GLANDORF 9
• Clear Fork O-G
• 15 First downs 8
• 391 Total yards 252
• 286 Rushing yards 74
• 105 Passing yardage 178
• 6-9-0 Passing 12-27-1
• 2-0 Fumbles-Lost 0-0
• 1-48 Punts 4-36.75
• 2-15 Penalties 2-20
• Score by quarters:
• Clear Fork 14 7 7 7 — 35
• O-G 0 3 6 0 — 9
• First Quarter
• CF-Trey Sellers 33 run (Nash Evans kick), 8:52

CF-Nash Evans 33 pass from Marcus Hoeflich (Nash Evans kick), 3:31 Second Quarter O-G-Larson Kreinbrink 24 FG, 9:38 CF-Alex Schlosser 1 run (Nash Evans kick), 3:20 Third Quarter O-G-Deegan Miller 69 pass from Tanner Vogt (run failed), 11:35 CF-Trey Sellers 5 run (Nash Evans kick), 4:04 Fourth Quarter CF-Nash Evans 29 pass from Marcus Hoeflich (Nash Evans kick), 4:57 Reach David Trinko at 567-242-0467 or on Twitter/X @Lima_Trinko.